2013 Europeans Preview

Russia likely to Win Most Medals

by Alexandra Stevenson

Second Son for Evgeni Plushenko

Evgeni Plushenko, the 2006 Olympic champion (and 2002 & 2010
silver medalist from Russia), and his second wife, Yana Rudkovskaya,
whom he married in 2009, welcomed their first child, a boy, they
have named Alexander Evgenevich Plushenko. Plushenko, now 30, has a
first son, Egor Kristian Plushenko, from his previous marriage in
2005 with Maria Ermak.

On Russian television, Plushenko said he was so excited, he
couldn't even think about the European championships where he will
perform his Short Program set to "Storm", which was choreographed by
Pasquale Camerlengo, on Thursday, January 24 and his Free Skate to
music by Saint-Saens, created by Kenji Miyamoto of Japan, on
Saturday, January 28.

Despite easily winning his 10th Russian title by a huge margin at
the end of last year, he explained he was not at his peak. "I felt I
had to defend my title, but I started to train too early after
aggravating my spinal injury (disk hernia). I don't know how I will
do in Zagreb."

Setback at European Championships as Fog Closes Zagreb and
other European Airports Stranding Competitors

by Alexandra Stevenson

Heavy rain and fog have closed Zagreb Airport, delaying many
competitors' arrival for the European Championships. That was
reflected in Monday’s practice sessions. Only a fraction of the listed
competitors turned up for a chance get the feel of the ice on which
they will compete.

Stuck in Dresden are the German World Pair champions, Aliona Savchenko
& Robin Szolkowy. They checked in on Monday morning for a flight via
Frankfurt only to be told Frankfurt Airport was closed. As of early
Monday evening, they were still in Dresden. Their event starts
Wednesday.

The defending European Men's Champion, Evgeni Plushenko, from Russia,
was on a plane which was diverted to Budapest. That city is only a
three hour drive from Zagreb but he, and his coach, Alexei Mishin, do
not have the necessary Hungarian visa necessary for Russians to enter
that country. They are currently cooling their heels in the Budapest
Airport Transit lounge. But Plushenko has time to kill since his event
does not start until Thursday.

The defending European Men's Champion, Evgeni Plushenko, from Russia,
was on a plane which was diverted to Budapest. That city is only a
three hour drive from Zagreb but hedoes not have the necessary Hungarian visa
necessary for Russians to enter that country.
He is
currently cooling their heels in the Budapest Airport Transit lounge.
But Plushenko has time to kill since his event does not start until
Thursday.
His coach, Alexei Mishin, was on another flight which went via Vienna
along with his pupil, ElizavetaTuktamysheva, arrived Monday evening.

Other competitors were more fortunate. They were diverted to Split,
another city in Croatia. Although it is about a four-hour drive away,
ground transportation is being organized for them.

The World’s Top Two pairs Face Unexpected
Challenges this Week

by Alexandra Stevenson

Russian defending European pair champion, Maxim Trankov, soldiers on
with partner Tatiana Volosozhar despite his father’s fatal heart attack on
Sunday which came on while the 62-year old former noted modern Pentathlon
competitor was in a shop in his hometown of Perm.

Trankov will return to Russia as soon as he can after
completing his event, which is scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday
evenings. He has been excused from taking part in the Exhibition gala on
Sunday, which is compulsory for all medalists.

The German world champions, Aliona Savchenko & Robin Szolkowy, who were
unable to defend this title last year due to her ankle injury, were
stranded in Dresden after their flight cancelled and did not arrive until
late Tuesday, which meant they will compete without having a practice on
the ice surface being used for competition.

Volosozhar & Trankov posted the current world’s top score for pair
skaters but, in the recent Grand Prix Final, which they controversially
won, Trankov made two major errors.

Trankov, now 29, who did not get on with his father, left Perm for St.
Petersburg when he was only 15, and suffered periods when he did not have
enough to eat and slept, illegally, hidden in the ice rink.

He told one very famous Russian journalist (a former Olympic gold
medalist diver for the Soviet Union) that part of the reason he quarreled
with his father was that the father kept trying to coach him using
techniques he learned particularly as a show jumper. (A Modern Pentathlon
competitor runs, swims, horseback rides, fences and shoots a pistol.)

Trankov told Elena Vaitsekhovskaya in 2011, “I didn’t like my parents
in the audience when we were competing. Not once did I skate well in their
presence. One time my parents came to Russian nationals in Kazan where
(his former partner Maria) Mukhortova and I were lying first after the
Short, ahead of Kavaguti & Smirnov. But with them there for the Free
Skate, I didn’t land one jump!

“When I was growing up, my dad always accompanied me to practice and
would give me hell if he saw something he didn’t like. I hated going home
from the rink with him. It especially annoyed me when my father would
teach me about figure skating based on equestrian examples.”

Like most of us, he wishes now that it is too late, that he could have
seen things in a more mature light.

(21 January 2012) Sun and melting snow
greeted the Russians, who, early Sunday afternoon, were the first
team to arrive in Zagreb, Croatia’s capital city, and head for the
Four Points Hotel which overlooks the event location, the old Dom
Sportova Arena. That seemed appropriate since Russia qualified to
send the largest team. They were the only country to qualify for the
maximum of three berths in all four disciplines.

Understandably missing on the bus picking up skaters and their
coaches at the airport was the defending Men's champion, Evgeni
Plushenko, who won the 2006 Olympic gold medal and silver in the
Games of both 2002 and 2010. The 30-year-old wanted to spend time
with his new (second) son and his event doesn’t start till Thursday.
His first son, Egor Kristian Plushenko, was born in 2006 to first
wife, Maria Ermak, but that marriage did not last long. He married
Yana Rudkovskaya in 2009 and Alexander Evgenevich Plushenko is their
first child.

On Russian television, Plushenko said he was so excited, he couldn't
even think about the European championships where he will perform
his Short Program set to "Storm" which was devised by Pasquale
Camerlengo and his Free to “Best of Saint-Saens” which has been set
by a Japanese choreographer.

Practice begins early Monday morning with the ice dancers who
will open the competition late Wednesday afternoon with their Short
Dances, which, this season, must include the Yankee Polka.

ICE DANCE

This discipline is generally an event in which there are few
surprises. With the 2011 & 2012 champions, Nathalie Pechalat &
Fabian Bourzat, from France, missing due to his injury, it is
possible, Anna Cappellini, 25, & Luca Lanotte, 27, who were fourth
in last year’s European Championship, could fracture Russian hopes.

In the Grand Prix Final in December, which was held in the Iceberg
Arena in which the 2014 Olympic figure skating will take place in
Sochi in Russia, Cappellini & Lanotte, who train at the Detroit
Figure Skating Club, earned their best score of 165.64. They placed
ahead of the top two Russian couples who are competing in Zagreb.

Ekaterina Bobrova, 22, & Dmitri Soloviev, 23, who were runners-up
to Pechalat & Bourzat for the past two years, are hoping to turn
silver into gold. Their Russian teammates, Elena Ilinkh, 18, &
Nikita Katsalapov, 21, who were third in this event last year
despite a major mistake in their Short Dance, are aiming, at least,
for silver, while Ekaterina Riazanova, 21, & Ilia Tkachenko, 26, the
third Russian couple on the team finished fifth last year, are also
hoping to be promoted.

Cappellini & Lanotte had the nerve to compete in the Skate Canada
Grand Prix with a Free Dance using music from the opera, “Carmen”,
which is also being used by the Canadian, Olympic and world
champions, Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir.

Although they didn’t beat the Canadians, they finished second and
their version stood up. (The Canadians, who are not eligible to
compete in the European championships, subsequently changed that
routine to include a “feminist” ending.)

PAIRS

Four times European (2007, 2008, 2009 & 2011) and World (2008,
2009, 2011 & 2012) Champions Aliona Savchenko, who turned 29 on
January 19, & Robin Szolkowy, 33, from Germany, traveled to
Sheffield last year for the 2012 European championship but had to
withdraw due to her illness, leaving the title undefended and easily
claimed by Russia’s Tatiana Volosozhar, 26, & Maxim Trankov, 29.

The Russians would dearly like to hold onto that title. The two
rivals have not faced off this season because the Germans were not
able to compete in their second assigned Grand Prix event. Savchenko
developed flu while they were competing in Canada, and lost too much
practice time before their second assignment and had to withdraw
from it. So, they did not qualify for the Grand Prix Final, which
Volosozhar & Trankov won despite being beaten in the Free Skate by
their teammates, the Grand Prix Final silver medalists, Vera
Bazarova, who turns 20 on January 28, & Yuri Larionov, 26.

This younger couple was forced to withdraw from the recent Russian
championship due to a problem with one of his blades, and then
couldn’t compete here in Zagreb have been forced out of this event
due to his hand injury, which prevents him from giving her the
support she needs in lifts. They have been replaced by Ksenia
Stolbova, 20, & Fedor Klimov, 22, who won the European bronze last
year.

The 2010 European and 2008-2010 Russian Champions, Yuko Kavaguti,
31, & Alexander Smirnov, 28, who did not compete in last year’s
European championship, have been fighting a downslide, aggravated by
injuries.

Perhaps the three time Italian champions, who finished Stefania
Berton, 22, & Ondrej Hotarek, who turns 29 on January 25, have a
chance to better their fourth place from last year.

MEN

In the Men'ssingles, thirty competitors from 22 countries have entered.
There was a lot of controversy in the recent Russian championship.
Sergei Voronov, the silver medalist, who placed more than ten points
behind Plushenko, was Russian champion back in 2008 & 2009 but the
now 25-year-old was only 10th in last year’s European
championship. He and last year’s European silver medalist, Artur
Gachinski, had bad performances in the last world championship, in
Nice, with Gachinski an inexplicable 18th, just behind
Voronov, who was injured.

Gachinski, 19, was second to Plushenko in the 2012 European
championship, but is not on this team after placing only fourth in
nationals behind the bronze medalist Konstantin Menshov, 29, who, in
a very controversial decision was also left off the team for Zagreb
in favor of the young Kovtun, 17, who finished fifth nationally but
won the Junior Grand Prix. (See previous news story).

Defending European champion, Evgeni Plushenko, still says he’s in
pain and not completely fit, but seems to have great pain tolerance,
and a will to win. In the mix for second place are a fleet of what
you could call “has beens” along with some very promising
youngsters.

There is French heart throb Brian Joubert, who is competing in
his 11th European championship. The sexy 28-year-old
French competitor has won medals in every one of those occasion
except last season, when he was 8th. (He won in ’04, ’07
& ’09; along with three silvers and four bronzes.) He won the French
championship for nine straight years but did not compete in this
season, allowing his teammate Florent Amodio to claim the national
title.

Amodio, 22, who was adopted in Brazil by a French couple when he
was only a few days old, is 22. In his first entry in the European
championship two years ago, he won the title. Last year he finished
with the bronze medal.

There is also Spain’s Javier Hernandez, 21, who was sixth in the
European championship last year but managed to completely outskate
world champion Patrick Chan by winning both sections of the Skate
Canada Grand Prix near Toronto at the beginning of this season.

And then there are the Czech rivals, Michal Brezina, 22, who has
finished fourth in this event twice, in 2010 and last year, and the
2008 European champion, Tomas Verner, 26, who has won the Czech
championship nine times and been second twice. He was beaten in his
first senior nationals and then again in 2010, this time by Brezina.
Verner has competed nine times in the European championship winning
in 2008, getting silver in 2007 and bronze in 2011. But last year he
was fifth.

LADIES

With last year’s runner-up for the Ladies title, Kiira Korpi from
Finland sidelined due to injury, the defending champion, Carolina
Kostner from Italy, should, theoretically have an easy time of it.
However, with 36 Ladies from 29 countries, she faces a lot of
unknown potential, particularly from the Russians.

Kostner, who turns 26 on February 8, is an extremely graceful woman
with great speed and flow over the ice. She is the current world
champion and has competed in the European championship ever since
she became Italy national champion in 2003. She has kept that title
in all but three years. She did not compete in 2010 and was second
twice, in 2004 and 2010.

If she wins this time, it will be her fifth European title. She
claimed gold in 2007, 2008, 2010 & 2012. She received silver in 2004
& 2011, and bronze in 2006.

Last year’s bronze medalis is Elene Gedevanishvili, who represents
Georgia, a country she left, first for Russia, and then for the
U.S.A. Her family lives in New Jersey, but she now trains in Canada.

Kostner did not compete in the Grand Prix series this season faces
competition from two 16-year-old Russians, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva,
the current national champion and Adelina Sotnikova, the runner-up,
are making their debut in this event.

The first reserve is Polina Korobeynikova, who turned 16 on December
4. She made her debut in this event last year, placing fourth, but
was only tenth in the recent Russian championship.

The 22-year-old Alena Leonova, who has represented Russia in the
past four European and World championships, and was second last year
in world championship to Kostner, was only ninth in her nationals
and is only the second reserve, which must be devastating.

The 2010 Russian champion, Ksenia Makarova, who was born in Russia
but brought up in the United States, is third reserve. She placed
ninth, fourth and sixth in the past three European championships.

This is the fourth time that the Zagreb Dom Sportova has hosted
the event. The first time was in 1974 when Zagreb was the second
city in the former Yugoslavia, before that country violently split
apart forming separate countries.